Pierre, son of Noël Surette
and Françoise Colarde of Mauset, diocese of La Rochelle, France, born
in c1679, was a sailor when he married Jeanne, daughter of Étienne Pellerin,
at Port-Royal in February 1709. They remained at Port-Royal and
settled in the parish of St.-Laurent on the haute
rivière, now the upper Annapolis River. Although Pierre became a farmer along
the upper Rivière-au-Dauphin, he also continued to work as a sailor.
As
late as 1724, when he was in his mid-40s, records show him as a crew member
on Englishman William Winnett's sailing vessel. Pierre died at
Annapolis Royal in October
1749, age 70. Jeanne died at Québec in
January 1758 during Le Grand Dérangement, also at age 70. Pierre and Jeanne had nine children, all
born at Port-Royal/Annapolis Royal. Four of their daughters married into the Doucet,
Gignac, Long, Mius, and Petitot dit
Saint-Seine families. Their three sons created families of their
own, but they did not remain on haute
rivière:

Oldest son Pierre, fils,
also called Pierre II, born in December 1709,
married Catherine, daughter of Pierre Breau, at Grand-Pré in
September 1732 and lived at Minas before moving to Petitcoudiac.

Joseph, born in May 1712, married Marguerite,
daughter of Claude Thériot, at Grand-Pré in October 1730.
They remained at Minas.

Youngest son Paul, twin of sister Madeleine, born
in November 1721, married Marie-Josèphe Landry, widow of
Jean Landry, probably at Minas, where he, too, raised a
family.

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this
family to the winds. ...

.

In late February 1756, Pierre
Surette II, who had ingratiated himself with his British
captors, led a daring escape from Fort Cumberland, formerly French Fort
Beauséjour, at Chignecto. Eighty Acadians, including partisan leader
Joseph Broussarddit
Beausoleil, escaped via a tunnel they had dug with discarded horse
bones. They escaped to the woods and managed to elude the British, but they paid a terrible price in doing so. By 1759, they
had joined other Acadian refugees at Miramichi, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence
shore. There, they suffered almost as much as they had done in the
woods north of Chignecto. In November 1759, near Memramcook, Pierre IIand two other Acadian
resistance leaders, Jean and Michel Bourg, "surrendered" to the
British, but, the following spring, Pierre IIrejoined the resistance
movement, at Restigouche on the Baie des Chaleurs. After a British
force captured Restigouche in the summer of 1760, Pierre IIand his
family were sent to a prison compound in Nova Scotia, where they were held
until the end of the war. After their release, Pierre II and his family decided to remain in Nova Scotia, at
Chezzetcook near Halifax. They stayed there until c1770, when they
moved to Ste.-Anne-du-Ruisseau, present-day Pointe-à-Rocco, northeast of
Cap-Sable. ...

.

Meanwhile, at Halifax, Pierre II's namesake nephew, Pierre le jeune, his teenage wife Marie
Thibodeau, and her Broussard and Thibodeau kin, had a serious dilemma on
their hands. The Treaty of Paris of February 1763 stipulated in its
Article 14 that persons dispersed by the war had 18 months to return to their
respective territories. In the case of the Acadians, however, this meant
that they could return only to French soil. Chignecto was no longer
French territory. British authorities refused to
allow any of the Acadian prisoners in the
region to return
to their former lands as proprietors. If Acadians chose to remain in Nova
Scotia, they could live only in the interior of the peninsula in small family
groups and work for low wages on former Acadian lands now owned by New England
"planters." If they stayed,
they must also
take the hated oath of allegiance to the new British king, George III, without reservation.
They would also have to take the hated oath if they joined their cousins in
the St. Lawrence valley.
After all that they had suffered on the question of the oath, no self-respecting Acadian
would consent to take it if it could be avoided. Some Halifax
exiles chose to relocate to Miquelon, a French-controlled island off the southern coast
of Newfoundland. Others considered going to French St.-Domingue,
today's Haiti, where Acadian exiles in the British colonies already had gone,
or to the Illinois country, the west bank of which still belonged to France,
or to French Louisiana, which, thanks to British control of Canada, was the
only route possible to the Illinois country for Acadian exiles.
Whatever their choice, they would not remain in old Acadia. So Pierre
and Marguerite gathered up what money they could and
prepared to leave their homeland.

LOUISIANA: WESTERN
SETTLEMENTS

Surettes were among the
earliest Acadians to seek refuge in Louisiana. Pierre Surette
le jeune,age unrecorded, came with the Broussarddit
Beausoleil party from Halifax that reached New Orleans via Cap-Français,
St.-Domingue, in February 1765. He likely was a part
of the Broussard party because his wife, 17-year-old Marie Thibodeau,
was a Broussard kinswoman. With them was daughter Marie-Anne,
age 3. Also in the party was Marie's widowed mother and three of
Marie's siblings. After a short respite in New Orleans, during which
daughter Marie-Anne was baptized on March 4 at the St.-Louis church, Pierre and
Marie followed the Broussards to the Attakapas District, where
they helped created La Nouvelle-Acadie on the banks of Bayou Teche.
Marie was pregnant when they reached Attakapas, and in June, two months
after they settled on the Teche, she gave birth to son Augustin.

That summer and fall, an epidemic
swept through the Teche valley settlements and killed dozens of
Acadians. When French officials counted the surviving Attakapas
settlers in April 1766, only Marie Thibodeaux and daughter Marie-Anne
Surette were left in her household at La Manque,
near the upper Teche. Pierre and
the infant Augustin must have died by then, probably victims of the
epidemic. Marie remarried to fellow Acadian Jean-Baptiste
Semer at Attakapas in c1768.

Marie-Anne married Firmin dit
Ephrem, son of fellow Acadian Bruno Robichaux, at Attakapas in April
1778, and remarried to Marcel, son of fellow Acadian Paul LeBlanc, at
the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in August 1811, in her late 40s. Soon after their
marriage, Marie-Anne's husband secured a decree of separation from her.
She died at
her home at La Grand Pointe on the upper Teche in November 1817; the priest
who recorded her burial said that she died at "age about 53 years," but she was 55.
Her succession records were filed at the St. Martinville courthouse, St.
Martin Parish, in
August 1811 and December 1817.

CONCLUSION

Though Pierre Surettele jeune of Grand-Pré had a son in Louisiana, the boy died in childhood, and Pierre
did not live long enough to father more sons. His daughter, however,
married twice, into the Robichaux and Landry families. The Acadian branch of
the family, then, except for its blood, did not take root in the Bayou State.
The Surettes of South Louisiana today are descended from French
Creoles or Foreign French, not Acadians.

The family's name also is spelled Suret,
Surre. This family should not be confused with the Serret or Serette
family from Bordeaux, France, who lived at New Orleans, on the Acadian Coast, and briefly at Attakapas
during the late colonial period and settled in Iberville Parish and the
Baton Rouge area during the antebellum period.

For a chronology of Acadian Arrivals in Louisiana, 1764-early
1800s,
see Appendix.

The hyperlink attached to an individual's name is connected to a list of Acadian
immigrants for a particular settlement and provides a different perspective
on the refugee's place in family and community.

arrived LA Feb 1765, in utero, with party from
Halifax via St.-Domingue led by Joseph BROUSSARD dit Beausoleil; born & baptized 19 Jun 1765, Attakapas; son of Pierre SURETTE & Marie THIBODEAUX;
brother of Marie-Anne; died
before Apr 1766, when his widowed mother was listed in the Attakapas census
without a son in her household

born & baptized Grand-Pré, 25 Sep 1736?;
son of Joseph SURETTE & Marguerite THÉRIOT?; married Marie,
daughter of probably Charles THIBODEAUX & Brigitte BREAUX, c1760 or 1761; arrived LA Feb 1765 with party from Halifax via St.-Domingue led by Joseph
BROUSSARD dit Beausoleil; on list of Acadians who exchanged card
money in New Orleans, Apr 1765, called Pierre SURET; died before Apr
1766, when his wife was listed in the Attakapas census, La Manque District,
as a widow

Since he was born only 4 months after his family
reached LA, he was in utero when his mother stepped off the ship at
New Orleans, so he is included on this list. Was he a victim of the
epidemic that killed dozens of Teche valley Acadians in the summer & fall of
1765? His early death & the death of his father
soon after he reached the colony, perhaps also in the Teche epidemic, is why
the Acadian line of the SURETTE family did not survive in LA.

02.Wall of Names,
25, calls her Marie-Anne SURETTE; NOAR, 2:259 (SLC, B5, 84), her
birth/baptismal record, calls her Marie-Anne SURRE, gives her parents' names, says
she was born 24? Feb 1762 "in Chipute, England," & says her
godparents were Jean LAFITTE, "merchant in this city," & Marie-Anne
FORTIER; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:677, 736 (SM Ct.Hse.:
OA-vol.1, #80), the record of her first marriage, calls her Marianne SURET,
"native of Acadie," calls her husband Freme ROBICHAUX, "native of Acadie," gives her &
his parents' names, says both sets of parents were "of Acadie,"
& that the witnesses to her marriage were Jean-Baptiste BROUSSARD &
Silvain BROUSSARD; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-A:602, 895-96
(SM Ch.: v.5, #218), the record of her second marriage, calls her Marie
SURETTE, "inhabitant of this parish, native of Acadie, widow of Ephrem
ROBICHOT, calls her a major daughter, calls her husband Marcel LEBLANC, "of
this parish, native of St. James Parish on the River," calls him a major
son, give her & his parents' names but not his first wife's name, says all
parents were deceased at the time of the wedding, & that the witnesses to
her marriage were Michel MARTIN, Marcelle PATIN, Jean LANDRY, Alexandre
BROUSSARD, & Léon LATIOLAIS; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records,
2-A:896 (SM Cte.Hse.: Succ. #96), her first succession record, dated 6 Aug
1811, calls her Marie SURETTE, "wid. Euphreme ROBICHOT," & lists her
children by her first husband; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records,
2-A:896 (SM Ch.: v.4, #1143), her death/burial record, calls her Marie
SURETTE, "spouse of Marcel LEBLANC, inhabitant of la grand-pointe, native of
Halifax," says she died "at age about 53 years at her home," that she was
buried "in the parish cemetery," but does not give her parents' names;
Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-A:896 (SM Cte.Hse.: Succ. #283),
her final succession record, calls her Marie SURETTE, "m.1st to Freme
ROBICHOT m.2nd to Marcel LEBLANC," but does not give her parents' names or
list any children.

Where is Chipute, England? Her burial record says that she
was born at Halifax. Did the priest mean to say that she was born in an
English colony? If so, he was right. Perhaps Chipute was
Chepoudy, which was not very close to Halifax. Was her godfather, the
merchant Jean LAFITTE, that Jean LAFITTE? The answer is no, because the famous LA pirate was not born until c1780.

See the footnote for her
second
husband's profile for details of their separation in 1812.

Was he the Pierre, son of Joseph SURET & Marguerite
TERIOT, born & baptized at Grand-Pré on 25 Sep 1736? See BRDR,
1a(rev.):180 (SGA-2, 157).

Where did he marry his wife? Restigouche?
Halifax?

Evidently, Marie & Pierre had no time to produce more
children between the birth of Augustin in Jun 1765 & the death of Pierre
in either late 1765 or early 1766. Did Pierre & Augustin die of
the same thing? Were they victims of the epidemic that
killed dozens of their fellow Teche valley Acadians in the summer & fall of
1765? If they were, their deaths were not recorded by the priest at
Attakapas. In c1768, Marie THIBODEAUX remarried to Jean-Baptiste
SEMERE, who also had come to Attakapas with
the BROUSSARD party & who had written the famous letter of Apr 1766 to his
father in France.